This thesis consists of five stand-alone chapters empirically evaluating questions relating to the life cycle of natural resource extraction. We use three different data sets to shed light on the local impacts of natural resource booms and busts. In chapter 2 to 4 we use the household budget survey of Kazakhstan to explore the impacts of the oil boom on the local population. In the second chapter, we explore the distributional effects of the oil boom and show that average household income increased and income inequality decreased. In the third chapter we study how the increase in average income was perceived by the local population and find that households' satisfaction with income decreased. In the fourth chapter we study how the boom affected households' expenditure and show that the likelihood that households pay tuition fees for tertiary education increased. In chapter 5, we explore the long-term impacts of a negative labour demand shock following the coal mine closures in the UK. To do this we construct a new data set containing the location of all active coal mines since 1981 and link it to the UK census. We find that the dramatic lay off of miners since 1981 was associated with a persistent reduction in female labour force participation in the affected districts. In chapter 6, we study the determinants of drilling costs and their impact on the real price of oil using a new global data set on the number of exploration wells drilled and costs of drilling. To do this, we propose a structural model of the upstream sector in the oil and gas industry. The model allows us to decompose the variation in the reduced form errors of the estimated VAR into three structural shocks, and estimate the dynamic responses of the variables in the system to these shocks. We confirm that the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry is subject to increasing costs. But we do not find that the real oil price is permanently affected by shocks to costs of drilling.

The thesis focuses on the analysis of a Behavioral New Keynesian DSGE model. In particular, various specifications of the model are collected from the existing literature and their combinations are simulated. The specifications include heuristics for forecasting output gap, sets of estimated or calibrated parameters and model structures. The resulting simulated output and inflation gap series are compared with the macroeconomic stylized facts and real world data from the US and Euro area based on their distributional characteristics and autocorrelation structures. In addition, a comparison of various simulated model specifications is performed based on the level of correlation between fractions of agents following a specific heuristic and the resulting output and inflation gap values. The distributional characteristics of the US output gap seem to be matched the best by the specifications with unbiased and extrapolative output gap heuristics generating series with higher levels of variance and kurtosis. Contrarily, the Euro output gap is best matched by specifications with optimistic, pessimistic and unbi- ased heuristics producing series with lower levels of variance and kurtosis. Second, the autocorrelation structure of the simulated series tends to mirror the stylized facts as opposed to the...

Syftet med denna undersökning är att belysa och analysera de breda effekterna av flykting- förläggningen i Svappavaara under dess verksamma tid 1987–1995. Däribland hur den togs emot i lokalsamhället, men även dess roll för upprätthållandet av arbetstillfällen, bostäder och samhällsfunktioner i och med den ekonomiska nedgång som drabbade Svappavaara med gruvkrisen, och föranledde till behovet av alternativa näringar såsom flyktingförläggningen. Undersökningen utgår från de teoretiska begreppen ekonomiska upp- och nedgångar samt platsanknytning, vilka används som analytiska redskap genom denna historiska fallstudie med vissa inslag av rumslig metod. Undersökningens slutsatser pekar på flyktingförläggningen som en stor bidragande faktor till att Svappavaara kunde behålla arbetstillfällen, befolkning, bostäder och samhällsfunktioner när krisen slog till. Lokalsamhället tog varmt emot flykting- förläggningen och flyktingarna som integrerades väl i samhället och bidrog med liv och rörelse i bygden, till minskad arbetslöshet, till att mängder av bostäder inte längre behövde rivas, och slutligen till att Svappavaara överlevde krisen. / This study aims to highlight and analyze the multifaceted effects of the refugee facility in Svappavaara during its operative time between 1987 and 1995. It illustrates how the local community received the refugee facility and its role in the maintenance of jobs, housing, and municipal services with the economic downturn that hit Svappavaara as part of the mining crisis, which led to the need for alternative industries such as the refugee facility. The study is based on the theoretical concepts of booms and busts, and place attachment, which are used as analytical tools throughout this historical case study including some elements of spatial method. The study's conclusions point to the refugee facility as a major contributing factor to Svappavaara being able to maintain jobs, population, housing, and community functions when the crisis hit. The local community warmly welcomed the refugee facility and the refugees who integrated well into the community and contributed to the activity in the area, to reduced unemployment, the fact that many homes no longer needed to be demolished, and finally to Svappavaara surviving the crisis.

The treatment of owner-occupied housing (OOH) is probably the most important unresolved issue in inflation measurement. How -- and whether -- it is included in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) affects inflation expectations, the measured level of real interest rates, and the behavior of governments, central banks and market participants. We show that none of the existing treatments of OOH are fit for purpose. Hence we propose a new simplified user cost method with better properties. Using a micro-level dataset, we then compare the empirical behavior of eight different treatments of OOH. Our preferred user cost approach pushes up the CPI during housing booms (by 2 percentage points or more). Our findings relate to the following important debates in macroeconomics: the behavior of the Phillips curve in the US during the global financial crisis, and the response of monetary policy to housing booms, secular stagnation, and globalization. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series